There is always money down the back of the sofa when daft politicians want to screw us taxpayers. Read on and be shocked ...
The daily news is often terrifically boring with a succession of special interest groups taking to the media, begging bowls in hand, insisting that "The Government" gives them more and yet more of OUR money. One such outfit is the police who already spend a fortune on endless "community engagement events" rather than crime-fighting. (In high crime Sandwell the local Blues have so little to do they have been going out litter-picking to save Serco a few bob on their multi-million pound contract - nice!)
A few years ago no city in our white supremacist empire would touch the loss-making z-list Commonwealth [sic] Games with a barge pole, but up stepped two Labour Councils determined to shaft their constituents - Bankrupt Birmingham and Corrupt Sandwell in the English West Midlands.
You will have read recently that Birmingham Council was hurtling towards the local government equivalent of bankruptcy yet Labour decided to pile Pelion upon Ossa and blow millions on the parochial, royalist, egg and spoon races etc. The Council has now been placed in Government "Special Measures" and is making swingeing cuts to the vital public services which it has a statutory duty to provide. Birmingham Labour will cause immeasurable harm and suffering to local folk due to its profligacy and ineptitude.
Across the Black Country frontier Labour has made urban dystopia Sandwell synonymous with corruption, cronyism and incompetence. This rotten Council too has been placed in "special measures". The Borough is one of the poorest and most deprived in the whole Country but decided to build what is almost certainly Britain's most expensive leisure centre up a back road in the arse of end of God knows where, whilst moaning about "austerity". The corrupt comrades were so desperate to host the even more recherche swimming and diving events at the ragtag competition they stuck a pin in a map and decided to destroy a precious greenfield site to build the Sandwell Aquatic Centre (aka the "sac" or "scrotum"). More bizarrely still, the building was erected on Londonderry Fields to comply with international sporting requirements and then another small fortune has been spent converting it for leisure centre use. It could still accommodate - yawn - international diving competitions but not swimming ones! There has been chaos already concerning the management and running costs of The Scrotum which is destined to lose huge sums. Oh, and two much used local pools were shut for the benefit of the weirdly-located SAC and Labour are desperately trying to flog one (which is Grade II listed) via blue-blooded estate agents, Savills.
Don't think this is simply an anti-Labour rant since many Tories joined in this absurdity with central Government also having our pants down for colossal sums, and the former soft-furnishing salesman and hype-supremo, West Midlands Mayor Andy Street, going into paroxysms of delight as millions of pounds vanished down the drain.
Some of us fought against this nonsense from day one, but the combined forces of our two main political parties and our grotesque "royal" family crushed us - ably assisted throughout by the BBC and other mainstream media.
Our friend @eldiablo0786 on X (formerly Twitter) frequently describes the tsunami of criminality in Birmingham generally and Lozells in particular. Anyone following social media in awful Sandwell will be shocked at the litany of heart-rending stories as the victims of crime cry out - usually adding that they have received little or, more usually, no help whatsoever from West Midlands Police (WMP). (Of course, WMP has always been able to find cash to torment those they don't like such as the Justice 4 the 21 campaign group.)
Off I went last year with my banner to the Games Baton Relay to protest at this obscene spectacle only to be confronted with an entire car park rammed with WMP cars, motorcyclists and officers. It was as if a major emergency had occurred such was the astonishing display of Blue wo/manpower and materiel. Ever since I have been trying to find out how much this farcical circus cost us. And now I know - although I was so shocked at the figures I had to go back to WMP and check them.
Drum roll please - Labour and the Tories p*ssed £46.6 MILLION up the wall on the Games policing alone. This was part of an overall security splurge of £97 MILLION when including dosh for private contractors and the military. Local cops had to stop colleagues in other forces from fighting crime on their manors too, and bring them in to help. Happily us taxpayers paid thousands for them all to receive "branded rucksacks and water bottles". Pass the sick bag, Alice!
This is, quite simply, absolutely outrageous - and, of course, this £100 million was only a fraction of the overall cost of the feeble Games. Remember that when you are metaphorically (or perhaps surreptitiously) masturbating in front of the bull at New Street Station whilst waiting for the train strikes to end - although maybe it is periodically snorting at the idiocy of our political representatives?
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| Photo courtesy of Dave Harrison, Alcester iancrowmultimedia@gmail.com |
